Waterton

[Jeff Young]

Nice find, Daniel.  (The book too; I just ordered a copy.)

[Daniel Frauenhoff]

Thanks, Jeff.

Its an interesting book, not too much else on the railroad you haven't already seen but it is valuable if you're interested in the history of the area as well.

Daniel

[Jeff Ramsey]

Here is a new one Norm.
 

[Norm Acker]

A few more pictures from the new scenery work that I have been working on and mentioned in the Telegraph lines thread. I suppose I should have put these under the "What's on your workbench 2023" thread!









My latest efforts:

[Dave Eggleston]

Norm, a really nice use of scatter and static materials. I especially like the close-up of the variety of weeds showing up in clumps.

[Jim Courtney]

Wow, Norm, you've been holding out on us!

Really, really nice scenery work--captures that place where the plains meet the foot hills of the Front Range, just southwest of Denver proper. I always appreciate understated, realistic scenery. You are doing it very well.

This is On3, correct?  Looks like you are doing a double decked layout. Any chance you could post a track plan?

Jim

[Norm Acker]

Thanks again, Jim and Dave, I appreciate your kind words. My small layout hasn't really been much to look at for the (gasp) 15 years that I've been working on it. Now that it finally has some scenery it's starting to look much better. I started out in On30, but converted to 3 foot gauge about ten years ago. My late dad drew a rough trackplan to fit the odd space. He was in HO for most of his adult life and was an avid follower of John Armstrong's practices and later modeled most of the D&RGW's 3rd division in On30 after many years in HO. His layout was quite the spaghetti bowl track plan, but he did a nice job with it. Sadly, he never got around to the scenery (until recently, I was starting to think mine would also suffer the same fate...). His layout is in Wisconsin, and my brother and I maintain it in his honor.

I jokingly refer to my basement setup as "ten pounds of On3 in a five pound bag". I'll see if I can get the plan drawing posted in the next day or so.

I live on the east end of the area that I'm modeling (what's left of the Silica branch right of way is about 100 yards from my house), which roughly represents the line from Silica to South Platte in the mid-30's. There was no room for Strontia Springs, and my planned Silica branch is drastically abbreviated, even more so than Jeff's is.

The backdrop is a panoramic photo from the ROW looking east from where the Kassler filter beds used to be. I had to "Photoshop out" the modern fencing and several McMansions just south of there to make it look right for the time period. I still need to work on the lighting to minimize the backdrop reflections.

I have to give tons of credit to my P-B-L buddy Jimmy for his mentoring with the scenery. It's motivated me to get more work done downstairs than I've done in years of puttering around. He likes to tease me that he's going to re-gauge it to Sn3 one of these days when he's here so that it's in the proper scale...

[Norm Acker]

I had a little extra time this morning, so here's the track plan my dad faxed to me in 2012 with a little joke to inspire me.  He was a big influence for my love of Colorado narrow gauge (it's the main reason that I moved out here from the Midwest), and I wish he could see the layout now. The aisle shapes changed slightly once I got to building benchwork, but it's still fairly close to this drawing. The staging tracks are considerably shorter than he sketched, but they'll hold 6 to 8 car trains. The upper level staging is mostly done, only one track down below for now. The new penciled additions are obviously mine. I had to use a 30" minimum radius due to the small space, but consolidations look just fine and thankfully I'll only have two passenger cars for the Leadville train, which still don't look too bad going up the hill. My maximum grade is 3% around the loop, my #69 can just pull 7 cars up to South Platte. I'm planning for 12 car trains up to Leadville with a helper, I'll stage them on the reverse loop track. I hope to disguise the under/overpass with lots of fir trees! Apologies for the last few huge images, I'll try to scale things down better in the future.

 

[Jim Courtney]

That is a very thoughtful track plan, Norm. Simple, achievable but realistic. Your Dad was a clever man.

A familiar stretch of C&S mainline, connecting two stations, one above the other, depots at Waterton and South Platte, with a nice stretch of canyon scenery in between. Even a familiar thru truss bridge. The two staging yards to feed trains onto the layout should allow for reasonable traffic for operations, much more satisfying than a branch line terminal like Alma or Central City.

I can see how the choice of Waterton, with the flat farmland, will work well as the lower level town. It's a shame O scale eats up so much real-estate (S scale isn't a slouch in that regard).

Please post more photos of your progress. I need more inspiration to start a layout!!

[Mike Trent]

Beautiful work, Norm. Keep us posted. Can't wait to see it one of these days. Those #69's are scarce as hen's teeth. Yours has sure found a good home!

[Jim Courtney]

Hey Norm and Mike,

Is the On3 C&S 69 a Precision import? I don't recall Overland producing the B4-Ds in O scale, only the big B4-Es. Is this correct??

[Norm Acker]

Jim, according to BrassTrains.com, the PSC model # is PSC-15229. I believe that I read somewhere that the run was in the mid-80's and they produced 25 of them. Since 69 is in so many pictures of the Platte Canyon, I snatched it up in 2019 and sent it Derrell Poole to install sound and lighting (and he did an excellent job).

[Mike Trent]

Hi Jim. Yes, the B-4-E's were the only C&S 2-8-0's OMI produced in On3.

[Keith Hayes]

Spectacular, Norm!

[Norm Acker]

Thanks Keith! We're almost neighbors, we really ought to get together one of these days. When Jimmy comes back in a couple of months I'll bet he'd enjoy seeing your layout, as would I!

[Daniel Frauenhoff]

Scene at Waterton Depot - July 16, 1937 - I'm wondering what the deal with all the boarded up coaches is.

From a collection of Richard B. Jackson albums that can be found here:
https://californiarevealed.org/islandora/object/cavpp%3A70852#page/1/mode/1up/search/Richard%20B.%20Jackson

[Jim Courtney]

Daniel, thanks so much for the link to the Jackson photo album, lots of new images (for me) to look at!

I believe that the passenger cars boarded up are being store for use in the dismantling trains.


BTW, there appears to be a second Jackson photo album at the same site, with images of the South Park division of the C&S:
https://californiarevealed.org/islandora/object/cavpp%3A70851#page/1/mode/1up/search/Colorado%20%26%20Southern%20railroad


Lots of hours ahead looking at photos!!

[Chris Walker]

Jim Courtney wrote

Daniel, thanks so much for the link to the Jackson photo album, lots of new images (for me) to look at!

Lots of hours ahead looking at photos!!

Agreed: thanks Daniel;

The bulk of these photos constitute Mal Ferrell's C&Sng.  The unpublished Pine Grove Coaling trestle views really would have been wowed over years ago when I was building my quasi-Como version.  

[Norm Acker]

Another rare view of the depot - and in red paint - thanks Daniel!!